Camp Amersfoort played a major role in the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands, new research shows

That’s in the book The forgotten story of the Jewish prisoners of Camp Amersfoort by historian Amanda Kluveld of Maastricht University. She discovered that 82 Jews were murdered in Camp Amersfoort, including a baby. The camp was also a collection camp for Jews ten months before the opening of Camp Westerbork.

“This research puts Camp Amersfoort in a completely different light,” says Floris van Dijk, head of research at National Monument Camp Amersfoort. Fidelity. “In the post-war memory culture, the Jewish prisoners of this camp have been unfairly marginalized.”

Auschwitz

Direct deportations also took place from Camp Amersfoort. Two trains left for Auschwitz and almost four hundred Jews were transported to Mauthausen penal camp, where they were murdered.

Kluveld’s research shows that the image of Camp Amersfoort must be adjusted: the camp was not only a place where tens of thousands of prisoners had to perform forced labor during the Second World War, but also a place where Jews were exterminated. “Camp Amersfoort does not appear on an international list of these camps,” says Van Dijk. “But Kluveld’s research shows very convincingly that Amersfoort should be among these.”

For the research, Kluveld looked at new (foreign) ego documents, sources in which someone gives personal testimony, and statements by prisoners in post-war trials against Nazis. The documents also show that ordinary prisoners were incited against the relatively small group of Jews in the camp. For example, Jews received less to eat. “It was said to Jewish helpers: you will be an anti-Semite here within three months.”

According to Kluveld, there was a conscious strategy behind the way in which Jews were separated and treated in Camp Amersfoort. Pencils were stuck in eyes, beards were set on fire, Jews were thrown into cesspools and beaten to death. “These are practices that we might think: that happened elsewhere. But it did happen here. And it also had a purpose,” Kluveld writes.

Kluveld hopes that her research will give the descendants of Jewish prisoners more recognition for the suffering inflicted on their relatives in Camp Amersfoort. “What we learn from this research is that Camp Amersfoort was the beginning of the end for many Jewish prisoners.”